• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.152-157
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• 2017

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the intra-rater and inter-rater reliability of the dual rehabilitative ultrasound imaging (D-RUSI) when simultaneously measuring muscle thickness changes at rest and during co-contraction of the biceps brachii (BB) and triceps brachii (TB). Design: Cross-sectional study. Methods: This study included 36 healthy participants (23 men, 13 women). The participants sat on a chair in a comfortable position with a cushion placed under their elbow to maintain a 90-degree elbow flexion angle. The muscle thickness of the biceps brachii and triceps brachii was measured twice using the D-RUSI by two examiners during resting and co-contraction states. One week later, the same procedure was performed once again. Results: The intra-class correlation coefficients (ICCs) for intra-rater reliability ranged from 0.887 to 0.989 and the confidence interval was within an acceptable range of 0.778 to 0.994. The standard error of measurement (SEM) values ranged from 0.303 to 0.866 and the minimal detectable change (MDC) values ranged from 0.84 to 2.40. The ICCs for inter-rater reliability ranged from 0.758 to 0.925. The SEM values ranged from 0.702 to 1.486 and the MDC values ranged from 1.95 to 4.12. Conclusions: The use of the D-RUSI of the BB muscle had a very good intra-rater reliability and very good inter-rater reliability at the resting state, and a, good inter-rater reliability at the co-activation state. ICC values showed very good intra-reliability and inter-reliability for the TB muscle. the D-RUSI is a useful tool for simultaneously measuring the thickness of two muscles when the BB is an agonist and the TB is an antagonist during co-activation of the upper arm.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.370-378
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• 2009

N-myc downstream-regulated gene 2 (NDRG2) has recently been found to be a tumor suppressor gene. Although it has been reported that NDRG2 expression in breast cancer cells decreases cell proliferation by inhibiting STAT3 activation via SOCS1 induction, the molecular mechanism of chemotherapeutic agent-induced apoptosis is not well known. To elucidate the effect of NDRG2 on the apoptotic pathway induced by doxorubicin, we established stable cell lines expressing NDRG2 and investigated the effect of NDRG2 expression on the doxorubicin-induced apoptosis. While STAT3 activation was remarkably inhibited by NDRG2 overexpression, the expression level of p21 was increased by NDRG2 expression. We confirmed that NDRG2-expressing cells treated with doxorubicin suppressed STAT3 activation and upregulated p21 expression. NDRG2 expression considerably enhanced TUNEL positive apoptotic cells, poly-ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) cleavage, release of cytochrome c to cytosol, and caspase-3 activity in doxorubicin-induced apoptosis. Bid expression in a resting state and after treatment with doxorubicin increased in MDA-MB-231-NDRG2 cells compared to MDA-MB-231-mock cells. Meanwhile, Bcl-$x_L$ expression decreased in MDA-MB-231-NDRG2 cells compared to MDA-MB-231-mock cells in a resting state and in doxorubicin-treated cells. Collectively, these data suggest that suppression of STAT3 activation by NDRG2 influences the sensitivity to doxorubicin-induced apoptosis of breast cancer cells and this may provide a potential therapeutic benefit to overcome the resistance against doxorubicin in breast cancer.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.43-47
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• 2018

Traditional electroencephalography (EEG)-based authentication systems generally use external stimuli that require user attention and relatively long time for authentication. The aim of this study is to investigate the feasibility of biometric authentication based on EEG without using any external stimuli. Seventeen subjects took part in the experiment and their EEGs were measured while repetitively closing and opening their eyes. For identifying each subject, we calculated inter- and intra-subject cross-correlation using changes in alpha activity (8-13 Hz) during eyes closed as compared to eyes open. In order to optimize the number of recording electrodes, we calculated authentication accuracy by progressively reducing the number of electrodes used in the analysis. Significant increase in alpha activity was observed for all subjects during eyes closed, focusing on occipital areas, and spatial patterns of changed alpha activity were considerably different between the subjects. A mean authentication accuracy of 92.45% was obtained, which was retained over 75% when using only 8 electrodes placed around occipital areas. Our results could demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed novel authentication method based on resting state EEGs.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.281-287
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• 1984

In search for a method of evaluating the cardiopulmonary function. 74 male and 33 female volunteers ages $18{\sim}25$ were subjected to this study The subjects walked on a treadmill at speed of 2,4,6 and 8km/hr with 0,5,10,15,20 and 25% grade of inclination, respectively, for a measurement of heart rate and oxygen-pulse. Heart rate was measured every 5 seconds at resting state and during walking by telemetric method using Heart Checker 108 System (Senoh Co., Japan). Oxygen concentration was measured by Douglas bag method collecting expired air for 5 minutes at rest, and for 2 minutes at the end of each walking exercise. Oxygen concentration in an expired air was analyzed with Orzat gas analyser and expressed in terms of STPD. Oxygen-pulse was defined as an amount of oxygen consumed at every heart at a cellular level. The followings were the results obtained from this study. 1. Mean values of oxygen-pulse at resting state was $3.1{\pm}0.11ml/beat$ in male and $2.5{\pm}0.87ml/beat$ in female, respectively. 2. Mean values of oxygen-pulse during treadmill walking were increased in proportion with the load of exercise, namely, the speed and grade of inclination, from minimum of 7.1ml/beat upto maximum of 18.2ml/beat in male and from minimum of 4.2ml/beat upto maximum of 12,7ml/beat in female. 3. Both linear and logarithmic regressional relationships between oxygen-pulse and speed of walking and grade of inclination were observed in both sexes. Predicted values of oxygen-pulse by logarithmic regressional formula on speed and on grade of inclination were better coincided with the measured values than those predicted by the linear regressional formula.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.461-465
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• 2015

Microglia, the resident macrophages in the central nervous system, can rapidly respond to pathological insults. Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) is a pattern recognition receptor that plays a fundamental role in pathogen recognition and activation of innate immunity. Although many previous studies have suggested that TLR2 contributes to microglial activation and subsequent pathogenesis following brain tissue injury, it is still unclear whether TLR2 has a role in microglia dynamics in the resting state or in immediate-early reaction to the injury in vivo. By using in vivo two-photon microscopy imaging and $Cx3cr1^{GFP/+}$ mouse line, we first monitored the motility of microglial processes (i.e. the rate of extension and retraction) in the somatosensory cortex of living TLR2-KO and WT mice; Microglial processes in TLR2-KO mice show the similar motility to that of WT mice. We further found that microglia rapidly extend their processes to the site of local tissue injury induced by a two-photon laser ablation and that such microglial response to the brain injury was similar between WT and TLR2-KO mice. These results indicate that there are no differences in the behavior of microglial processes between TLR2-KO mice and WT mice when microglia is in the resting state or encounters local injury. Thus, TLR2 might not be essential for immediate-early microglial response to brain tissue injury in vivo.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.63-69
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• 1983

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of prostaglandin $E_2(PGE_2)$ and indomethacin upon the electrical activity of the isolated cat stomach muscle strips$(1.5{\times}7.0\;cm)$. Fifty-seven muscle strips, obtained from 57 cat stomachs(including corpus and antrum) were studied in a muscle chamber filled with Krebs solution(pH 7.4, temperature $36{\pm}0.5^{\circ}C$) aerated with 5% $CO_2$ in $O_2$. The electrical activity was recorded by five capillary electrodes (Ag-AgCl), of which two were placed on the corpus and three on the antrum. After recording of the electrical activity in normal Krebs solution, $PGE_2$ in concentrations of 0.25(N=7), 0.5(=7), 1(N=7) and $2{\times}10^{-7}\;M(N=6)$ were administered to 27 muscle strips, while indomethacin was applied in concentretions of 0.25(N=9), 0.5(N=10), 1(N=6) and $2{\times}10^{-3}\;M(N=5)$ to the remaining 30 strips. The mean frequency were minutely measured from each electrogastrogram. 1) By adding $PGE_2$ in all doses, gastric slow wave frequency increased significantly compared with that in resting state. 2) Following $PGE_2$ administration, peak slow wave frequency increased dose-dependently. 3) After indomethacin addition in all doses, the slow wave frequency decreased significantly compared with that in resting state. 4) Following indomethacin administration, incidence of complete abolition of slow wave increased dose-dependently, and its latent period decreased also in a dose-dependent manner. It is inferred from the above results that prostaglandin $E_2$ has a facilitatory role in the development of gastric slow wave in cat.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.11-20
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• 1996

To investigate the properties of cromakalim-opened $K^{+}\;channels$ in aorta of spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR), the effect of cromakalim on tension was compared in endothelium-rubbed aortic rings from SHR and normotensive Wistar-Kyoto rats (WKY). 1. Cromakalim relaxed the aortic ring contracted by $10^{-7}$ M norepinephrine (NE) dose-dependently, and this relaxant response to cromakalim was blocked by $10^{-5}$ M glybenclamide. 2. Cromakalim also relaxed the contraction induced by high $K^{+}$-solution or 10 mM tetraethylammonium dose-dependently. However, the relaxant response to cromakalim was decreased by raising the $K^{+}$ concentration. 3. SHR aorta exhibited myogenic tone in resting state which was inhibited by cromakalim, verapamil or $Ca^{2+}-free\;PSS.$ Whereas, WKY aorta did not exhibit any myogenic tone in resting state. 4. When aortic rings from both strains were contracted by $20\;mM\;K^{+}\;or\;NE$, relaxant responses to low concentration of cromakalim $(below\;10^{-7}\;M)$ were not different between WKY and SHR, but maximum relaxant response to cromakalim $(above\;3{\times}10^{-7} \;M)$ was greater in SHR than in WKY. 5. When the relaxant response to cromakalim was expressed as percent of maximum relaxation induced by $Ca^{2+}-free\;PSS$, relaxant response to cromakalim in 20 mM $K^{+}-induced$ contraction was not different between WKY and SHR. From the above result, it is suggested that relaxant responses to cromakalim are greater in SHR than WKY, and this may be due to the myogenic tone of aortic rings from SHR.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.107-117
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• 2021

Background and objective: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of a forest healing program in terms of depression, neuropsychological and physiological benefits for the elderly. Methods: For this purpose, we developed a forest therapy program for the elderly who are vulnerable to dementia and conducted a total of 11 sessions of forest therapy activities in a forest once a week. We measured the changes in depression, resting-state Electroencephalography(EEG) and heart rate variability (HRV) before and after the program. There were 60 subjects aged over 65 yesrs old. 30 subjects participated in the forest therapy program, and the other were in the control group. The Geriatric Depression Scale was used to measure the level of depression, neuroNicle FX2 (Laxtha, Korea) was used to measure the resting-state EEG, and photoplethymogram (ubpulse T1, Laxtha, Korea) was used to measure the HRV. Results: The results showed that the depression index of the experimental group improved with statistical significance after the program (experiment group = 3.267 decrease of the mean). In the EEG measurement, the alpha-peak frequency at rest (experimental group = 0.227 Hz increase of the mean) was improved (mean increase = 0.23 in the experimental group, p < .05). The high frequency of HRV, which represents the parasympathetic nerve activity of the body's autonomous response, was also significantly improved (mean increase = 0.396 in the experimental group, p < .05). Conclusion: The results suggest that the forest therapy program can reduce the cognitive, psychological and physical risk factors of dementia for the elderly at risk of cognitive decline. Therefore, forest therapy activities may be suitable for the prevention of dementia in the elderly.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.185-192
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• 2022

Early detection of mild cognitive impairment can help prevent the progression of dementia. The purpose of this study was to design and validate a machine learning model that automatically differential diagnosed patients with mild cognitive impairment and identified cognitive decline characteristics compared to a control group with normal cognition using resting-state quantitative electroencephalogram (qEEG) with eyes closed. In the first step, a rectified signal was obtained through a preprocessing process that receives a quantitative EEG signal as an input and removes noise through a filter and independent component analysis (ICA). Frequency analysis and non-linear features were extracted from the rectified signal, and the 3067 extracted features were used as input of a linear support vector machine (SVM), a representative algorithm among machine learning algorithms, and classified into mild cognitive impairment patients and normal cognitive adults. As a result of classification analysis of 58 normal cognitive group and 80 patients in mild cognitive impairment, the accuracy of SVM was 86.2%. In patients with mild cognitive impairment, alpha band power was decreased in the frontal lobe, and high beta band power was increased in the frontal lobe compared to the normal cognitive group. Also, the gamma band power of the occipital-parietal lobe was decreased in mild cognitive impairment. These results represented that quantitative EEG can be used as a meaningful biomarker to discriminate cognitive decline.

• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.337-342
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• 2023

Purpose: This study aimed to compare the resting energy expenditure (REE) measured using indirect calorimetry with that estimated using predictive equations in severe trauma patients to determine the appropriate caloric requirements. Methods: Patients admitted to the surgical intensive care unit between January 2020 and March 2023 were included in this study. Indirect calorimetry was used to measure the patients' REE values. These values were subsequently compared with those estimated using predictive equations: the weight-based equation (rule of thumb, 25 kcal/kg/day), Harris-Benedict, Ireton-Jones, and the Penn State 2003 equations. Results: A total of 27 severe trauma patients were included in this study, and 47 indirect calorimetric measurements were conducted. The weight-based equation (mean difference [MD], -28.96±303.58 kcal) and the Penn State 2003 equation (MD, - 3.56±270.39 kcal) showed the closest results to REE measured by indirect calorimetry. However, the REE values estimated using the Harris-Benedict equation (MD, 156.64±276.54 kcal) and Ireton-Jones equation (MD, 250.87±332.54 kcal) displayed significant differences from those measured using indirect calorimetry. The concordance rate, which the predictive REE differs from the measured REE value within 10%, was up to 36.2%. Conclusions: The REE values estimated using predictive equations exhibited substantial differences from those measured via indirect calorimetry. Therefore, it is necessary to measure the REE value through indirect calorimetry in severe trauma patients.